


Skipping Rope With An Ouroboros

by runwithneedles



Category: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Celts, Druids, Flashbacks, M/M, Yuletide 2019, i spose, romans, rosemary sutcliff - Freeform, what happens when i read about the druids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21843619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runwithneedles/pseuds/runwithneedles
Summary: Hilarion never did listen to his feelings till at least 6 months after they appear. This time, it works out for him.I am not a historian, much less of the Celts or the Romans, but most of the Druid stuff in here is from Peter Beresford Ellis' book  "The Druids". Imagine my delight upon learning there were lady Druids.I had a wonderful time writing this, and hope to do some sketches to accompany it. I've always wanted to draw Hilarion and Alexios, and Connla is just begging for a feisty portrayal,even though he doesn't really appear here except in implied death.Anyway, enjoy and happy Yuletide. :)
Relationships: Alexios Flavius Aquila/Hilarion, Hilarion/Lucius (Frontier Wolf)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Skipping Rope With An Ouroboros

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Verecunda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verecunda/gifts).



Hilarion didn’t remember how old he was when the Druid disappeared from his village, and no one had ever told him why or where she’d gone. She was old, but not so old she couldn’t have gone travelling, though she’d never mentioned any such plans. She had taught him and every other child who would sit still the history of their tribe, the history of the Celtic peoples, laws and religion and poetry. He remembered her saying that she would never write it down for them, that if you wrote a thing down it was easier to steal, more easily forgotten once read than if you memorized it. He remembered the bright intense light of her eyes as she told him that the Romans wanted to steal it, wanted to warp the living ideas their people held and bend the truth to their empire. 

“They know, little boy. They know our ideas run on different paths, that if we love truth and justice, we will never love them the way they want us to. They think women nearly animals, only property, and the land only something to be conquered, never lived with nor loved for itself. Only for gain. Such things are empty, and will fall. Such an empire consumes itself. Do not forget.”

She had held his little face in her hands and spoken low and urgent. 

He had not forgotten. Even when he enlisted, years later. Even when the pressure of practicality had led him to swear his oaths to Rome, when his legion had taken him far far away from Britain and the memory of her voice, some little seed of it stayed in his heart, twitched when he watched the tendrils of the empire reach further and further, when he extended their reach himself. But truly he’d not consciously sat with the idea till he was stationed in Britain again. 

He’d gone out one night, looking for pleasure and not too particular with whom or where. Hilarion was new to the garrison, but he’d had time to notice the beautiful red-haired man at the blacksmiths, who had held his gaze and smiled, and the girl in the town square who’d brushed a little too close, winked and disappeared behind a cart with a flip of yellow skirts. 

His mind had begun to wander several pleasant paths at once when the smell of beer caught him. A drink, then. That was enough for a start. 

He’d just sat down near the fire with his beer when the hooded, half-hidden figure across the fire from him stirred. 

“I suppose you’ve forgotten, boy”

Hilarion jumped internally, but he managed to keep it from showing. His natural snark came to his rescue. 

“I’ve not forgotten your words, but I have forgotten your name. It was many years ago you left.” 

“Not so long to me, but I suppose to you it would be. And my name is Camma.”

She was at the extreme end of age now, and would not be taking any more journeys, he thought.

It was that thought that led him to stay there far longer than he should have, with the bustle of tipsy villagers and other soldiers around him, talking into the night with her. 

He’d felt a comfort he hadn’t known he was missing, with her sharp memory of his childhood home, and the recollection of the old poems still keen in her mind. At his charming, slightly drunk request, she had recounted a few of his favorites. He had remembered somewhat of the verse, through or because of the alcohol, he wasn’t sure which.That pleased her, her old face cracking into warmth around her mouth still speaking the ancient words. 

It occurred to him later, after everything went wrong, that though he’d been rash to fraternize with a Druid, it had been unwise of her to tarry with him as well. Perhaps she felt the same recklessness he did, knew she would not be there long and so didn’t weigh the consequences as she might otherwise have done.

Either way, when the villagers breached the gate a few nights later, sharp spears and burning arrows, he’d caught the commander’s wrath. Someone, he was never quite sure who, had mentioned his late night with the old Druid, and the report of the attack, his name listed a weak link...it had been enough. Enough to send him to Castellum, though he’d never understood the logic of sending him to another British town if they thought him too loyal to his roots...

“Centenarius”

He did jump, this time. He’d been deep in his thoughts. It was the new Centurion, and Hilarion arranged his face in an attentive expression while he enjoyed looking at Alexios’ jawline. What would it look like in….”

“Centenarius, do you understand?” 

“Yes sir”

He had, too. Well, most of it. He sighs and buries the fantasy: it’s incredibly risky to fancy your Centurion. He’s seen it turn out poorly before, and not for the superior officer either. 

Hilarion had been incredibly successful with his repression, had tarried with every other lad and lass who’d humor him in order to forget. None of them seemed to see through it, except Lucius. Lucius had known him before Alexios, and was too gentle and keen for his own good. He’d just generally been too good. Too good for Hilarion, he thought, though he’d not let it stop him from “visiting” all those nights. 

And the lie had worked, it really had. Until the night the horse-thief was caught. 

Hilarion stands on the parade ground, deep unease chilling his bones along with the night air. 

The low light of the torches shows him the cold, hard resolve in Alexios’ eyes. Perhaps what he is about to say is foolish after all, rash and unwanted, but his lips begin to move anyway, his voice quiet. 

“You should have got drunk first--shall I take over?”

He knows Alexios will refuse, and he does.

“No, thank you Centenarius.”

He remembers that moment well, for it had been the first time he’d listened to the fierce bright love that had been growing in him, in spite of all the tricks his mind could play. The first time he’d known, with a bit of terror, how strong it was. Dangerous affection, the same sort of reckless flame that had gotten him exiled here to begin with. He never could resist, come what might. 

The events that followed that forbidding night were a bit of a blur. Bloody and panicked and freezing and desperate, fleeing across the hard and ravaged land. A few things stood out, of course. 

Alexios standing at the edge of the fen, waiting, guarding, seeing that they all crossed safely. As immovable and steadfast as the looming standing stones around them. The love in his heart had felt sharp as any knife, searing him with realization. He’d have died for Alexios, he knew then. Then and still. 

The bridge was even sharper in his mind, and he truly wished it wasn’t. No drink dulled it, no sleep quieted it. In fact those things seemed only to make the memory redder, the memory of the hole in Lucius’ chest, blood congealing as his body lay there. The leaden grief had sat cold and hard inside him since, making him feel for all the world as if the void Lucius had left in Hilarion was heavy instead of empty. Maybe it could be both. 

But they had escaped. He had given in to his love then, when Alexios’ wild bravery had bought them the wisp of time they needed, let that fealty consume and warm him like a candle warms a moth. Hilarion hadn’t followed the Centurion to his new post out of love for Rome, though he gave it fine lip-service. No, he would have been a fool to look at the ruined and abandoned forts they’d left and not see the cracks in the empire. 

“Such an empire consumes itself.”

She was right, of course. But he might yet escape the gaping ouroboros maw. And he couldn’t be bothered to look down its throat just yet: he had a hunt to enjoy before the sun set. 

Alexios rode up beside him, spear in hand, and they set out. 

The boar charged still, even though it was mortally wounded, Alexios’ spear deep in its chest. Before he could think, Hilarion had shoved Alexios out of the way, and as they fell to the ground the boar turned towards them. Hilarion seized the shaft and shoved it down, bracing it on the ground, letting the enormous animal further impale itself. It gurgled and fell to the ground, the head of the spear finally doing its work. 

They just lay there for a bit, remembering how to breathe. Alexios was tangled in Hilarion’s legs, partly underneath him, and he didn’t move to disentangle himself. The forest was pleasantly still but for birds, and the air chill enough that the warmth of another body was hard to pull away from. They had been sharing a bed, yes, but there was always the awareness of others. One was never quite alone in a garrison, though if the men knew, they didn’t seem to care.  
All the same it was exquisitely pleasant to just lie there, unmoving, close, content. 

Alexios spoke first. 

“I wonder sometimes, how you are still alive. Have you always been so quick to jump in front of death?”

In a split second Hilarion weighs all the snarky, funny things he could say, all the jokes, and also the raw sincerity that springs unbidden to his lips. He settles for a middle ground. 

“When Rome is watching, yes. If it may better the odds of a promotion. But in private, only for those I love.”

Alexios looks right at him then, a tiny smirk of a smile, bright brown eyes full of returned affection. He does not say anything to this declaration, only grabs Hilarion’s face in his hand suddenly and kisses him fiercely on the mouth. Quickly. And then again, less quickly. Hilarion feels himself warmer than before, and not just the redness in his face. 

The other man laughs and rolls over, seeing the crows circling over the boar carcass. 

“Much I’d love to tarry here like some village fool with a lover, Centenarius, but we must begin this task or nature will begin it for us.”

Hilarion jumps to his feet, flaunting his height a bit as he walks up to Alexios. 

“Next time I think we will take a long time on the hunt, and the beast we hunt will evade us in this very spot.”

Alexios laughs, and they hoist the carcass onto Hilarion’s horse and set off back towards the garrison, the crows dispersing, calling to each other in the bright spring sky.


End file.
